Monthly Archives: September 2009

Have you been following BBC coverage of Labour’s farewell conference today? If I understand what they are saying correctly the fact that The Sun has come out unambiguously in favour of Cameron is a matter of little import. I recall when the same newspaper came out in favour of Blair from 1997 to 2005 this was trailed by the BBC as having significant impact, but no longer, for some reason.

What IS important, as a representative of the NASUWT put it on the..ahem… delightful PM programme, is that the evil BNP must not under any circumstances be allowed to have members employed in the Teaching profession. Naturally the BNP were not permitted to respond to the Nulabour position espoused at conference by Mr Balls today. The BBC could have enquired of the NASUWT spokesperson why some legal political parties are more equal than others and on what legal basis was it right to discriminate against the BNP but of course that is never going to happen. To be clear; I have no time for the BNP but I do believe that it should be treated the same as every other legally constituted political party in the UK and the fact that the radical Socialists in power and the courtiers in the teaching unions think otherwise should not be adopted as the BBC default position.

The ideology of the likes of RESPECT and the SWP are just as repulsive as the BNP but they get a free pass from the BBC and are never brought into these discussions. Indeed the entire multiculti welfare loving leftist agenda of Nulabour is considered pretty obscene by many people so maybe individuals holding those political views should also be banned from holding employment in the teaching ranks?

Richard Bacon, possibly the BBC’s number one Obama fan (there’s some tough competition for the title) is set to become Simon Mayo’s replacement in the new year. His promotion to the afternoon slot should offer easy pickings for Biased BBC bloggers and commenters, especially when the US midterms come round.

I watched the interview on BBC1 breakfast this morning with McDoom and it really is all over for him. His staggering lack of charisma, his odd joker-like smile, his bumbling grasp of the economic realities, all too much for even the BBC to sanitise. Or so I thought. But up pops Nick Robinson to try and rally the troops for McCavity. Did you see it?

For years, the respected Climate Audit site has been warning that the famous “Hockey Stick” – a graph based on tree ring proxies used by the IPCC and Al Gore to “prove” their AGW propaganda – is inaccurate. Over the past few days, he has published conclusive evidence that it it is. The compiler simply took the most dramatic tree ring data and ignored the rest. The true picture is that surface temperatures have actually gone down. This was scientific fraud on a massive scale, and you can read about it here or here. The “hockey stick” graph was pivotal in the attempts to persuade the public to panic about AGW.

Chances of reading about this on the BBC? Absolutely nil. Today’s lead climate story is the Met Office warning that temperatures are going to rise by 4C by 2050. That, from a body that cannot even predict what will happen five days away.

One of the biggest failings of the BBC is bias by omission. That is, they conveniently ignore the issues that really matter because they don’t accord with the BBC mindset. An organisation that spends £800m a year on newsgathering – probably the biggest operation of its kind anywhere in the world – fritters the money away.

Take coverage of the EU, for example. Five years ago, the Wilson report damned the corporation’s analysis of EU affairs as narrow, boring annd unchallenging. The BBC responded by saying – as it always does when criticised – that it’s coverage was actually OK, but even so it would do better.

Spool forward to today. The Lisbon Treaty remains a matter of massive controversy which millions of people in England – as the recent EU poll showed – think is a major step towards a tyranny that they don’t want. So how does the BBC cover steps towards its ratification? By providing measured, in depth debate, as it promised? Not a bit of it.

On BBC1 Breakfast Time this morning an item on the Irish vote on Lisbon was sandwiched between coverage of the cervical cancer scare and – far more important – a lengthy item on the importance of dog-tagging. The Irish piece boiled down to a soundbite from a fish and chip shop owner who was intending to vote ‘yes’ and a fisherman who would say’no’. In between, a bland BBC reporter told us that the reason that Ireland was voting yes was because of the recession. And that was it.

Nothing about the implications of the vote, the claims of vote-rigging by Brussels, or the lies being told about the Treaty. No attempt to show the importance to people’s lives, or to do anything but the bare minimum.

This is what the BBC’s £800m news operation now routinely does. Items of major importance are reduced to their lowest, most simplistic, denomininator, while other matters its judges closer to people’s lives (like dog-tagging) are elevated to inflated over-importance. The BBC sold its soul to the EU years ago, and while Britain moves inexorably towards being a satellite vassal state of Brussels, its journalists sit on their hands refusing to analyse the issues that matter. “Bias by ommission” indeed.

I know I go on about Thought for the Day but it really is like the five minute hate. Take this morning. Rev Joel Edwards popped up to tell us all about the wonders of Obama ( “400% increase in death threats than George W Bush”, he repeated) and suggested that perhaps Jimmy Carter was right that those who opposed The One are indeed racists. Edwards is entitled to his opinions, of course, but isn’t it surprising how frequently the content of TFTD dovetails into the broader BBC narrative?

Yeah – I’ve been waiting on this! Ever since this site was redesigned thanks to the All Seeing Eye and G.O.T. I noticed more and more people have become followers of B-BBC. In the space of the past few months this number has almost trebled and is now sitting at 100, not out by a long count! Whatever we do, we must be doing something right – and here’s to the next hundred.

Roman Polanski ‘in fighting mood’ says the BBC in a piece heavily larded with comments by people who are shocked – shocked – by the fact that the Swiss authorities should have arrested him and also be considering an American request for extradition.

The Beeb finds a lot of people in the arts world eager to condemn, not just the arrest, but the idea that the US should still be chasing him for something that happened over thirty years ago. The Swiss press is quoted directly

Switzerland let a guest walk into a nasty trap. We should be ashamed,” said tabloid newspaper Blick. Daily paper Le Temps said Switzerland had “shocked film buffs and friends of the arts with its kindly and efficient co-operation with US justice. It has angered Poland and France”.

It almost smells like Rendition…

Strangely enough, even though Polish and French diplomats are mentioned adding their protests, the BBC fails to complete all the dots – so let’s ask Kate Harding of Salon.com to add the little bit the BBC forgot, the bit that got him convicted…

Let’s keep in mind that Roman Polanski gave a 13-year-old girl a Quaalude and champagne, then raped her, before we start discussing whether the victim looked older than her 13 years, or that she now says she’d rather not see him prosecuted because she can’t stand the media attention. Before we discuss how awesome his movies are or what the now-deceased judge did wrong at his trial, let’s take a moment to recall that according to the victim’s grand jury testimony, Roman Polanski instructed her to get into a jacuzzi naked, refused to take her home when she begged to go, began kissing her even though she said no and asked him to stop; performed cunnilingus on her as she said no and asked him to stop; put his penis in her vagina as she said no and asked him to stop; asked if he could penetrate her anally, to which she replied, “No,” then went ahead and did it anyway, until he had an orgasm.

Anyone else catch the BBC’s slobbering coverage of Mandy’s speech at the Labour Party wake, sorry, I mean conference in Brighton? Also, I understand 5Live was bigging up McDoom’s chances allowing a Trade Union barons the chance to make de facto political broadcasts on behalf of the Dear Leader. They SO want their political soul-mates to rise from the dead and have convinced themselves that Mandelson is leading the way. I agree, he IS leading the way but into political oblivion. Just wait for the start of the Conservative Party conference next week. By that time, the Irish will have rolled over and said Yes to the Eurocrats and then, and then, the BBC will do their best to expose tensions amongst Cameron’s ranks.

I did not see Andrew Marr ask McDoom if he was one of those people who took prescription drugs to “help get them through.” Did you? Is this, as some dear souls allege, evidence that the BBC is now anti-Labour? I see NO reason why Marr should not have and asked Brown whatever he wanted, is PM Brown some sort of special case? More of a basket-case if you ask me. I have no idea if Brown is on some sort of pillfest, but if he is, the drugs aren’t working…

I see that the BBC is reporting that The Lightworker will travel to Copenhagen to support the bid by the city of Chicago to host the 2016 Olympic Games. (All those carbon emissions…still, in a good cause.) It then goes on to reveal that “A local Chicago TV that reported on Chicagoans NOT wanting the Olympics has been told NOT to run the report again.” More bully tactics from the Obama administration? Oh, and I got it wrong. It was Fox that broke the story about the strong arm tactics in the Windy City not the slobbering house-trained Obamaphiliacs at the BBC!

Anyone catch this item on the Iranian situation? Martin Indyk from the Brookings Institute gets short shrift as he exposes Iranian duplicity meanwhile the Iranian ambassador to the IAEA gets to waffle for four minutes even getting stuck into Trident. A very weak interview indeed with the Mullah’s apologist getting away with all kinds of lies. More like a monologue really….

“Catastrophic climate change could happen with 50 years, five decades earlier than previously predicted, according to a Met Office report.”

The lurid eco-fantasy continues..

“An average global temperature rise of 7.2F (4C), considered a dangerous tipping point, could happen by 2060, causing droughts around the world, sea level rises and the collapse of important ecosystems, it warns.The Arctic could see an increase in temperatures of 28.8F (16C), while parts of sub Saharan Africa and North America would be devastated by an increase in temperature of up to 18F (10C)”

One of my favourite soul songs is “I can’t stand up for falling down.” Sometimes, that’s how it feels here. Thanks to the great help of others, this site has been redesigned (for free) and had the most modern of commenting systems installed (for free). Yet when I read some comments I detect a feeling that things were better in the golden days when we had a haloscan comment system and a basic blog design. Well, we now have the “new” haloscan system and a more refined design. It seems that each time anything new is attempted, all that comes back is brickbats and a desire for what was. In which case….why bother? Maybe others can sort it all out?